Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre speaks to reporters about Minister of Finance Bill Morneau in the in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017.Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS

BY PIERRE POILIEVRE

Before you buy a product, you need to know the price. Elections are no different. That is why politicians should show you the price tag before you vote.

Justin Trudeau’s latest budget will cost you a fortune — but he doesn’t want you to know the price.

He is afraid it will give you sticker shock. His strategy: Get you to hand him a blank cheque and tell you the price afterwards. This approach worked for Trudeau’s mentors, Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty, who won numerous elections hiding (and blatantly lying about) future hydro and tax hikes.

What proof is there that Trudeau will do the same?

First, he has already started raising your taxes. The average middle-class family is paying $800 in Trudeau tax hikes. He raised taxes on families in which one spouse earns more than the other, when he cancelled income splitting. He ended tax credits for kids’ activities, post-secondary education, transit passes and more. He also raised taxes on small business, who now face penalties for saving within their companies or sharing earnings and work with family members.

Not everyone is paying more. The Canada Revenue Agency reports that the wealthiest taxpayers paid $4.6 billion less in tax in the year after Trudeau’s tax changes took effect — another broken promise that leaves everyone else paying more.

He has never admitted he was wrong to try these tax hikes in the first place. He simply put them on hold after massive voter backlash threatened his re-election. Once the election is behind him, he will no longer need voters, but will still need their money.

Third, there is the carbon tax cover-up. His government released documents containing the real cost of the carbon tax, in response to an Access to Information request. But all the numbers were blacked out. So we must take his word for it, when he says the tax of $50 per tonne of carbon will only cost an Ontario family about $600.

But even if you believe him about that, he has another secret: how much will the tax rate rise after the election? His own Environment department says the current tax plan will fall 79 million tonnes of short of the government’s Paris Accord targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

How to fill the gap?

A February 2017 briefing note prepared for Finance Minister Bill Morneau says, “increases in stringency” will occur after 2022 — only a few years from now. How much will the tax go up? A 2015 Environment Canada briefing note said that meeting Canada’s greenhouse gas targets would require prices of a $100- to $300-a-tonne. That latter price is 15 times higher than this year’s rate. Based on the government’s own figures, a $300 carbon tax would cost $5,000 to a Saskatchewan family and $3,000 to an Ontario family. Very clever trick: Trudeau will send you a few hundred dollars in rebates before the election and give you a bill for as much as $5,000 after the election.

Fourth, taxpayers will sooner or later have to pay for his runaway deficits. He promised that “the budget would balance itself” in 2019. Instead, the deficit will grow to $20 billion and Finance Canada reports it won’t be gone until 2040, when the debt will reach a trillion dollars. Interest on this debt will rise two-thirds to nearly $40 billion within the next four years, calculates the Parliamentary Budget Officer — equal to what the federal government now spends on health care.

There is only one way Trudeau can pay for these permanent and growing deficits — a tax hike that will cost families a fortune.

He knows something about fortunes — he inherited one. Trudeau’s family wealth originated with his grandfather’s petroleum business. Ironically, the Prime Minister’s policies are putting today’s petroleum workers out of jobs.

Because the Prime Minister has never had to worry about money, he doesn’t worry much about your money. He has never balanced a household budget, so he thinks they balance themselves. He doesn’t worry about costs because others pay for his mistakes. He inherited a fortune and he costs you a fortune.

Before you buy the brand name, remember: you won’t know the real cost until after the purchase. And there is no money-back guarantee.

— Pierre Poilievre is a Conservative MP and the opposition finance critic.

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